sensitive war on terror, journalistic double-standards and junior terrorists

meanlouiseAugust 27, 2004

John Kerry, speaking before the Unity Journalists of Color Convention in DC, noted we need to fight a more sensitive war on terror. Dick Cheney and other closed-minded folk on the right had a field day with these remarks.

How come so far the Daily Show is the only one to note that W said the same fucking thing, to the same crowd, on the same day? Really. It’s on the White House site:

Before you cry “context!” go read the whole thing. Contextually, he’s saying much the same thing as Kerry. If we don’t want to trample the rights of everyone, create a bigger mess by mocking other cultures, and just generally mess up the world and make everyone hate us (more) we’ve got to be more sensitive to a lot of issues to fight an effective war on terror. It’s commonsense. So why is it insane when Kerry says it and patriotic when Bush does?

What reminded me of this weeks after the event? Well, for starters I’m still getting email forwards mocking Kerry for speaking to this “special interest group” and saying such “stupid things” despite W’s similar participation and assertions at the same event.

Plus, I just got this editorial in my email. Not that the rest of the editorial isn’t fun, fun, fun; but here’s the last 2 paragraphs of Bernadette Malone’s screed about protestors:

Bloomberg is calling for a sensitive war on protestor-terrorists, the way John Kerry is naively calling for a more sensitive war on international terrorists. Instead of manufacturing smiley-face buttons to pin on potentially unruly protestors, Bloomberg should be manufacturing plastic handcuffs.

It’s interesting that the assumption that all protestors are mouse-releasing, AIDS-spreading, islamic terrorists is so casually accepted by the Right. If I said that everyone attending the RNC was a racist, bigoted, imperialist my site would be tanked by another denial-of-service attack faster than you can say “hypocracy.”